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'Pirate Master': In love with your ghost
My fellow ruffians, can a twist be called a twist when the network's promotions shill it as soon as the end of the previous episode? They spoiled it almost immediately.
I won't, though, so if you don't want to know, check out our press tour coverage.
The problem with twists is that these days they don't change the game. Maybe that's because some players have momentum that a twist can't stop, but I have to think that's more often because the twist is thrown in at the last second without much forethought. I certainly got that impression from last night's Pirate Master. And yeah, not only did the twist make no difference, but it was discarded immediately.
Yep, as we found out about the first leg of last night's expedition, the pirates previously cut adrift came back as a "ghost" team. Instead of splitting into red and black, all of the remaining pirates made up the black team. If the ghosts won, Azmyth and his merry men would be stripped of their command and the ghosts would take all the treasure and hand out black marks. If you think that would make this show too good to be true, you're right. From that point, I didn't at all believe the ghosts would win.
So, that first leg involves rowing up the Rio del Muerte (sigh) to find a casket with a clue. Black takes the lead, and finds a poem inside the casket lid directing them to keys hanging above the river farther ahead. Black gets to their key first and triggers the sabotage, which hoists the ghosts' key farther into the air.
The next leg is a river hike to a graveyard. The ghosts catch a huge break when the black team heads south instead of east, which makes me greatly question their compass-reading skills. The ghosts immediately lose their break -- and remind us all why they were cast adrift -- when dancer/scientist John makes the brilliant choice to hang his team's key from his shorts. It immediately falls into the river without anyone noticing.
The black team and ghosts realize their mistakes at almost the same time. Black hikes straight inland from where they are, and the ghosts head back to the river from the graveyard to search for their key. Black is almost immediately at the graveyard, so they must not have been as far afield as the editing indicated. John, meanwhile, refuses to man up and admit losing the key, instead questioning the others who rightly pointed out he had it last.
It's a moot point. The graveyard clue supposedly points to a long hike north to an "angel tree," but they blipvert there immediately and find the treasure of $50,000. The ghosts are dismissed immediately, another sign to me that this twist was concocted hastily to try and shake up what's become a stagnant game.
The crew once again talks mutiny, recognizing the futility of the option -- truly, this contest lends itself to stagnancy here in the late game -- but prompting Jupiter to scurry off to Azmyth and warn him. For her trouble, Jupiter is seen as a troublemaker by the Triad. Kendra, Laurel and Jupiter are given black marks.
Laurel awesomely calls out Azmyth again, pointing out that any of the remaining crew would be better captains. Kendra merely says she's getting stronger with each challenge. I suppose that's true in that nobody's needed to save her life recently. Jupiter rather bizarrely says the crew needs a change but that she would never mutiny. As Jay rightly points out, why would the Triad voluntarily step down? They've got the game locked up, barring future hasty twists.
Kendra wins the pardon, but it doesn't matter. The three voting crew all go for Jupiter, taking out the captain's last sympathizer among the commoners. At this stage, though, will it do any good?
I don't think the game is locked up at all. Why do you think that? With awful Jupiter out of the way, the crew is free to throw a MUTINY next week. Everyone wants it, and both officers have already semi-agreed. Azmyth will probably go next week, one way or another.
I don't know when they're going to change the voting rules, but eventually (2 weeks?) won't it be one person's sole decision?
I also think its unfortunate that people give up on this show quickly. The internet has made everyone impatient, and has ruined the fun of watching things develop.
I had my fill of the fake drama, and fast-forwarded through most of the second half. I was glad to see Jupiter go, she was an idiot. And her stupid Buddha pose on the raft made me hurt my eyes I rolled them so much. AssMyth seriously needs to be taken down a peg or two, but I have to give Jay props on being the real Pirate Master. He's played everyone like a fiddle. I'm really liking Laurel at this point too. Her remarks about Az's fake dreads was hysterical.
Siansonea | Jul 18, 2007 7:36:02 AM | #The stupidity of the twist wasn't necessarily what it was. I'm not sure it was really tacked on since it seems to have occurred when there where an even number of players on both side (though I'm just guessing that, if the numbers weren't even then you're probably right). The problem is that all the challenges are nearly the same and boring, yet they are the only way to really effect change in the game.
I think the show worked better conceptually then it does realistically. Maybe they can look at the 1st season and improve on it, though I doubt they'll be given the chance.
Even worse, the promos and the interviews continuously give away the winner of the challenge without seeming to realize it. Last week they showed a preview clip of Jay saying he'd mutiny if the crew was ready to. Once you learned how the challenge panned out (the ghost crew handing out the black spots) you could easily deduce the captains crew winning since Jay'd be on that crew. Then during the competition they have an interview with Azmyth and he's still wearing the blue coat. Since he'd have done the interview after the challenge, why would heput the coat back on if he lost. I'd loose the interviews during the challlenges altogether, they don't add anything but filler.
Which I think is the real problem with this show. The captain has so much power that there is no drama each weak other then whether his crew will lose or whether the whole crew will mutiny and he gets to stack the deck against them either way.
A show about pirates should reward bold players and this doesn't.
What they should have done with the captain slot is have the entire crew (officers included but not the captain) vote each week on whether to keep the current captain or choose a new one, with majority ruling, tie goes to the captain. If the captain is deposed he goes into the hold and the entire crew can decide whether or not to mutiny. If they do, then he is gone and a new captain chosen. If they don't then black spots get handed out and the entire crew except the captain votes on who to set adrift (I'd like to even see a way to overthrow the captains black spots but that seems too confusing for 1 episode). This would allow players to make much bolder moves without fear of overwhelming consequences.
I'm curious, what happens if the crew mutinies, but the officers don't support it. Who goes home since all the votes are for the captain? It seemed to me that the voting crew (since Jupiter was black-spotted) could have voted for mutiny but one of the officers didn't want to support it (Ben?) which is why the crew didn't muting. Louie said something about wasting a vote if it wasn't unanimous and I don't know what he meant by that.
sac | Jul 18, 2007 9:10:46 AM | #
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